Revenue Share on TipSend

Revenue share lets a Box be sold once and have its earnings split automatically among the people who contributed to it — a photographer and their models, a DJ and featured artists, a producer, vocalist and mixer on a track. The split isn't separate bookkeeping: it's derived from the same verified consent record that ProntoTag already produces to authorize the content.

One source of truth proves who agreed to be in the Box and what each of them is owed. This document defines how that should work so we can design and build it consistently. Throughout, Recommendation marks a suggested default and Decision needed marks a fork to resolve before build. Numbers in examples are illustrative placeholders, not final rates.

01 Goals & non-goals

Goals

• Split a single sale across multiple verified contributors, automatically.
• Use the ProntoTag / ProntoID consent record as the authoritative roster of who is paid.
• Make every split transparent to all participants before the Box goes on sale.
• Keep an auditable trail: for any payout, show the sale, the split applied, and the consent that backed it.

Non-goals (v1)

• Negotiation or bidding over splits inside the product (splits are proposed and accepted, not haggled).
• Recurring subscriptions or per-stream royalties — v1 is one-time Box sales.
• Paying contributors who haven't completed identity + payout onboarding (their share is held, not skipped — see §07).

02 Core concepts

03 Where splits come from: the consent ledger

A contributor can only be in a split if they have an active, verified ProntoTag release for their part of the Box. That makes the consent ledger the roster for payment:

• No release → not in the Box → not paid. A Box can't publish or sell until every tagged person has approved.
• The release carries the share. When the Owner tags a contributor and requests consent, the request includes the proposed revenue share — so the contributor consents to two things at once: appearing in the Box, and the percentage they'll receive.
• One record, two jobs. The signed release is both the legal authorization and the payment instruction. There's no second place where "who gets paid what" lives.

04 Defining a split

Who sets it. The Owner proposes the split when building the Box. Every other contributor must explicitly accept their share (via ProntoTag approval) before the Box can go live.

Constraints (proposed defaults):

• Shares are whole or one-decimal percentages and must sum to exactly 100%.
• The Owner is always a contributor (their share may be the remainder).
• Minimum share per contributor: > 0% — no zero-value payees on the roster.
• Maximum contributors per Box: a sane cap for v1 (e.g. 20) to bound payout complexity.

Changing a split. Before first sale, changing any share re-opens consent — affected contributors must re-approve. After first sale, the split in effect at the time of each sale is frozen for that sale; a new split only applies to future sales and needs fresh approvals.

05 The money flow

For each sale, money is reduced in a fixed order, then divided:

Buyer pays (gross)
   − payment processing fee        (e.g. Stripe)
   − TipSend platform fee          (TipSend's cut)
   = distributable amount
       → split by each contributor's share → payouts

Worked example (figures illustrative): Box price $20.00, processing ≈ −$0.88, platform fee 10% of gross −$2.00 → distributable $17.12, split Photographer 60% / Model A 25% / Model B 15%:

06 Split timing: at sale vs pooled

• Option A — split at point of sale (recommended). Each sale is divided immediately and recorded against that transaction. Transparent, auditable per-sale, and maps cleanly onto Stripe Connect transfers.
• Option B — pool and distribute periodically. Revenue accumulates and is divided on a schedule. Fewer transfers, but harder to reconcile per-sale and to handle refunds.

07 Payouts

Backbone. Use a multi-party payout provider — Stripe Connect is the natural fit, since we already plan to use Stripe for the embeddable checkout. At sale, the platform fee is taken and each contributor's share is transferred to their connected account.

Onboarding. To receive money (not just be tagged), a contributor completes payout onboarding (identity + bank details). Being tagged and consenting is free and doesn't require it; receiving a share does.

Unclaimed / pending shares. If a contributor is owed money but hasn't onboarded: hold the share as pending (escrow), not forfeited; notify them; and prompt onboarding.

08 Consent changes & revocation

Consent is revocable at any time (ProntoTag → webhook → TipSend). Revenue share must respect that, and must distinguish future from past money.

• On withdrawal, the Box is automatically unpublished (no new sales) until it's requalified and republished without the withdrawing contributor, with a recomputed split.
• Past, completed sales stand. Earnings already paid for sales made while consent was valid are not clawed back. Withdrawal is forward-looking.
• In-flight money still owed to that contributor for valid past sales remains theirs — withdrawing future consent doesn't erase money already earned.
• The hard limit (state plainly in our terms): unpublishing stops new sales but cannot retrieve a Box already downloaded. Withdrawal means "removed from sale," not "erased everywhere."

09 Refunds, chargebacks & disputes

• Refund: reverse that sale's split — recover each contributor's share proportionally. If already paid out, this can create a negative balance recovered from future earnings.
• Chargeback: treated like a refund, plus any provider chargeback fee.
• Negative balances: net against the contributor's future shares first; escalate only if persistently negative.
• Contributor disputes ("I was promised more") are out of scope for automated handling in v1 — the split accepted at time of sale is authoritative. Provide a support path, not in-product arbitration.

10 Tax, compliance & merchant of record

This area most needs legal/tax counsel before launch — flag early.

• Merchant of record (MoR). Is TipSend the MoR (we sell to the buyer and pay contributors) or a facilitator (creators are the merchants)? This drives who owes sales tax/VAT and issues receipts. Acting as MoR is more work but removes the tax burden from creators — a real selling point.
• VAT / sales tax on digital goods varies by buyer location. Decide tax-inclusive vs tax-added pricing, and how it's collected and remitted.
• Payee tax info. Collect required details from earners (e.g. W-9/W-8 in the US, VAT status in the EU) during onboarding, and plan for reporting thresholds (e.g. US 1099-K).
• Records. Keep, per payout: the sale, the split applied, the consent record behind each payee, and their verified identity — tying back to ProntoID.

11 Rules & edge cases

• Currency: a Box sells in one currency; payouts may convert per payee. Decide who bears FX cost.
• Single-contributor Boxes: the split is simply 100% to the Owner — revenue share generalizes the normal case, it isn't a separate mode.
• Owner is also a tagged subject: allowed; the Owner appears once on the roster.
• Price changes apply to future sales only; past sales keep their recorded amounts.
• Free / pay-what-you-want: a 0-value sale produces a 0-value split. Define a minimum price for paid Boxes.
• Self-dealing / fraud: watch for fake contributors added to skim — mitigated by requiring verified identity (ProntoID) for every payee.

12 Split lifecycle

DRAFT         → Owner composing the Box and proposing shares
PENDING       → consent + share requests sent; awaiting approvals
ACTIVE        → all approved; Box can be published and sold
SUSPENDED     → a contributor withdrew; Box unpublished, sales paused
RECONFIGURING → Owner rebuilding the split without that party
RETIRED       → removed from sale; historical payouts remain on record

Each sale stores a snapshot of the split that was ACTIVE at the moment of purchase, so later changes never rewrite past payouts.

13 Worked examples

• Photo set. Photographer tags two models, proposes 60/25/15. Both approve appearance and share. One later withdraws → Box unpublished; photographer rebuilds as 70/30 with the remaining model. The withdrawing model keeps everything earned while consent was valid.
• DJ mix (original collaborators). A producer tags the vocalist and mixer who co-created an original track, 50/30/20. This clean case works because all three own their contributions — a mix containing third-party commercial recordings is not cleared by tagging alone, so keep that out of v1.
• Collaborative course. Three creators co-produce lessons, equal thirds. Largest-remainder rounding makes each $30 sale divide to the cent with no leftover.

14 Open decisions to resolve before build

1. Fee basis — platform fee on gross or on distributable amount. (§05)
2. Processing fees — deducted from the pot or absorbed by TipSend. (§05)
3. Merchant of record — TipSend vs creators; drives all tax handling. (§10)
4. Payout cadence & minimum threshold — instant vs rollup. (§07)
5. Unclaimed-share policy — hold duration and what follows. (§07)
6. Chargeback fee bearer — platform or contributors. (§09)
7. Re-approval on republish — required when the split changes? (§08)
8. Max contributors per Box — the v1 cap. (§04)
9. Owner-takes-all with tagged subjects — allowed? (§04)

Internal working document — for product and engineering review. Not a public commitment or legal/tax advice.